By Sufuyan Ojeifo
Captain ‘Hosa Okunbo is 64 years today (January 7, 2022). If he were to be here with us, would he have celebrated his Especial Day with pomp and ceremony? Perhaps, yes; perhaps, no. His decision as to the scale of celebration would have been shaped by exigent circumstance(s). But to be sure, Captain ‘Hosa loved to deploy his birthday in introspection and appreciation to God for the gift of life and His divine favour; and would quickly return to his business after some quiet time.
Let us rewind to 2018. He probably would have approached his 60th birthday (Diamond anniversary) exactly the same way, but for his beautiful wife, ‘Nosa, who arranged a surprise birthday bash in Seychelles to celebrate a great husband and motivator. Many friends and business associates of Captain ‘Hosa keyed into Nosa’s “coup” to celebrate her husband at 60 outside the shores of Nigeria. Did he appreciate the gesture? Yes, he did, especially for the opportunity to be away from the demands and pressures of business and kindred matters.
For a bustling mind, he received some muses on that occasion and quietly got thinking about how to contribute his quota to the process and project of redefining the Edo people and reconstructing communal identity that was different from the fast-spreading negative profile of Benin Kingdom as a contributor to human trafficking for prostitution especially in Italy. He had returned home to seek ways of immersing himself in some redemptive actions. That was what informed his collaboration and huge financial support for the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons {NAPTIP). That was when Julie Okah-Donli was in the saddle and she can attest to the magnitude of Captain ‘Hosa’s serial interventions in the works of the agency. In 2020, NAPTIP named him anti-human trafficking hero.
Last year, when he turned 63, he was already receiving medical attention in London for pancreatic cancer. Family members, friends and associates, nonetheless, took the opportunity to pray for his recovery and to wish him well. Indeed, we all prayed. Many of us exercised our faith in the face of the dreadful medical prognosis. I prayed for a significant divine intervention and that Captain’s case would be different. I looked forward to celebrate his recovery that would have made his case phenomenal in global medical history. I really wished for him to beat the cancer scourge and live to tell the beautiful story of his triumph. But, alas, God said it was time he returned to Him.
Captain fought a good fight. Those who knew him would attest to the fact that he was not wont to shying from fighting for the right reasons and for just causes. It was in business that he actually fought and defeated the vast majority of the “demons” and their conspiratorial alliances to undercut him. He had presented a witty personal summation of his business voyage in a conversation with me, to wit: about his conquering the air (as a retired commercial pilot), the sea (with the fifty-two vessels that Ocean Marine Solutions deployed in securing crude oil transportation to Warri and Port Harcourt refineries) and the land (on which he executed the iconic multimillion-dollar Wells Hosa Greenhouse Farm in Benin), albeit, he later revised his appreciation of his conquest over land. His clarification, which could not be faulted, was that after all said and done, the land would still end up taking in all humans to validate the holy scriptures that from dust we came and to dust we return, talking about our physical frame that houses our spiritual being.
In celebrating his 64th birthday posthumously, I am celebrating Captain ‘Hosa’s life and times of providing a solid shoulder for thousands to rest on. He showed love and compassion at different levels of human interactions through his charitable works. By his phenomenal acts of giving and ministering to the needs of others, he fulfilled God’s commandment of giving to the poor-and he extended that gesture even to the rich-and qualified for a just recompense in the way and manner only God Himself has deemed appropriate. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” Isaiah 55.8
Captain ‘Hosa sowed bountifully in the service of man and God. With his generosity, many were able to find meaning to life. He set a record that appears difficult to beat. There are ample opportunities for whoever wants to step into the shoes left behind by Captain ‘Hosa to do so. If that happens, Edo state in particular and mankind will be the better for it.
Back to my narrative, I had personally hoped against hope that God, whose ways and decisions are unassailable would confound the medics, their diagnosis and give us a reprieve, but He simply smiled and said that we had had enough of Captain ‘Hosa. Yes, we had him for 63 impactful and eventful years; we had wanted him for a much longer time, but the Almighty God, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth said it was time that Captain ‘Hosa’s beautiful soul returned home for a deserved rest.
Captain ‘Hosa’s family members, friends and business associates miss him sorely every day. Captain ‘Hosa’s transfiguration from terrestrial to celestial being, how he defined his life and times with his good works and departed in a blaze of wonderful testimonies, is simply transcendental. Captain ‘Hosa was a good man and since good men never die, Captain ‘Hosa did not die and is not dead; he lives forever.
A Scottish poet, Thomas Campbell, once said: “To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.” Captain ‘Hosa lives in my heart as he does in many other hearts. This is why, on this occasion of his maiden posthumous 64th birthday, I have joined his wonderful family and those who carry his memories in their hearts to celebrate an Angel in human form, who came, saw, conquered and was called back home to take his deserved place in paradise. Indeed, Heaven is lucky to have an amazing handiwork of God’s creation like Captain ‘Hosa. This is wishing my big brother a happy birthday and glorious reception in paradise.
▪︎ Ojeifo contributes this piece via ojwonderngr@yahoo.com
